So, what should we make of Data Design Interactive's brave new venture into the low end game market? Is it a new Intellivision? Is it a clever blend of marketing, candy, and video gaming? Or is it a giant pile of steaming yak doodie, served on a shiny plate by a smiling waiter who steals your wallet?

The answer, my friends, is none of the above. A big steaming plate of yak poo is a step up from this thing, lemme tell ya. HOLY FRIGGIN' CRAP does this thing suck on a trans-galactic scale! I mean, we're not talking Jakks sucky, or even nes-on-a-chip famiclone/flashback sucky. Hell no! No, those are more like purgatory. Ninjabread Man is HELL. HELL I tell you! My lord, what sick idiot let this thing out the door? I'll grant the packaging is pretty nice, and the brightness of the game's design is fairly pleasing. Unfortunately, however, the game looks (and feels) like it was designed by dyslexic pygmy marmots spun out on LSD. And the graphics! It looks like it was designed for the Magnavox Odyssey. Yessir, it does. Says so on the box, even... just kidding. The box does not even BEGIN to tell you about how REPUGNANT this game is.

Now, by fighting, we don't mean actual combat. No, we mean beating your head against the wall because you have to wait upwards of twenty seconds BEFORE THE FRIGGIN' TITLE SCREEN APPEARS (the friggin' TITLE SCREEN), while the blasted thing loads. Yeah, think XBOX Morrowind every minute or so. Now, I might almost be willing to forgive this travesty if the game was loading something, well, pleasingly game-like. Once you get past the title screen (and you MUST get past the title screen), and wait until next month for it to load, you are greeted by......

The most hideous graphics since Pong. Hell, this game makes Pong look IMPRESSIVE! In fact, this game makes TEXT ADVENTURES look impressive! The extreme (and I mean IN-HUMAN) difficulty will certainly be frustrating for little children (and adults). This game makes Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels look EASY. Here's a tip: if you're going to make a children's game, do NOT make the difficulty BEYOND ALL HUMAN CAPABILITIES. If you can get past the first level, you are God.

Imagine a CD-I. Remember those awful things? Now imagine this was a very bad CD-I and it decided to rape a Jaguar Fight for Life cart which had genetic abnormalities. Imagine the Jaggy cart gave birth to a fighting game so disgusting that it screamed in horror, and tried to strangle the hideous thing and threw it down the sewer. Imagine this freakish, twitchy, god-awful avatar of wretchedness actually survived in this new land of urine and feces and was raised by a family of mutant Maggoty Banana Slugs that taught it the secret art of Shaq-Fu. Got that?

This game is worse.

The animation makes the original Mortal Kombat look like a Disney film by comparison. Now imagine the 'Ninjabread Man' characters each have gone mute and do not have the ability to talk. Instead, they make awful sqeaky noises, and that each line sounds like it was lovingly recorded by Little Richard during a snowstorm on a twenty year old tape deck.

No joke. I'm dead serious. Then imagine that the game moves as slowly as a bowel movement at the local rest home pizza night, and that all of this nail biting action is accompanied by a thrilling soundtrack of ... weird noise. Kinda like a kid randomly poking keys on an '80s electronic Casio keyboard with the reverse setting on. Now, imagine that you have a vast repetoire of fighting moves like 'jump', 'slash', 'really slow throw', and 'suck ass'. The game has a ton of strategy though. Yeah, you are constantly forced to choose between randomly mashing a button (I'm partial to 'really slow throw') or gouging your eyes out with the controller. The second option becomes more appealing as time wears on.

Hands down, this is the worst game I have ever played. It's worse than the CD-I. Its worse than the Game.com and it's worse than the R-Zone(!). Hell, I'd rather play my APF or RCA Studio II than this travesty. Seriously. Stay very, very far away.

Now, on the good side, the thing does have appealing level designs and characters. Maybe one of the other games will not suck (if they make a sequel). Who knows? I'll tell you what I know. Someday, when I'm sitting in my giant, planet destroying space cruiser, having conquered the known galaxy, my enemies will play Ninjabread Man. And they will weep.